


Boll's Drop: A Star Wars Story

by hydralisk



Category: Original Work, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Bounty Hunter, Droids, Gen, earl has a bronx accent, this is a d&d campaign that i'm writing up because I'm an idiot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:01:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22369903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydralisk/pseuds/hydralisk
Summary: This is basically a write-up of a highly ridiculous d&d campaign.Boll Diiso is a freelance bounty hunter and gets into hijinks that involve a lot of droids and botched dexterity saves.





	1. Episode I: The Purple Menace

"You  _ sure  _ you want to do this?" the Kel Dor bounty hunter had asked. "I have an upgraded orbital hotel on Naboo."

"What, you afraid of what happens if I don't land on Naboo?" the drunk Bothan had replied, throwing the dice. "Ah,  _ fuck _ ."

And that's how Boll Diiso became the owner of a Corellian Engineering Systems Charger frigate.

"Can't believe it was that easy," said Boll in a low voice.

" _ I _ can," Earl replied, adjusting his hat to a jauntier angle. "That guy scammed you.  _ Let _ you win, 'n I bet I know why."

Boll rolled his eyes as they walked through the various corridors, waiting for Earl's epiphany.

"This ship is called the  _ Drop _ , and it's  _ hot, _ " Earl said. "Got warrants on it from Corporate Sector, Empire,  _ and _ CIS. Old warrants, but… you know. They check out."

Boll chuckled. "That's pretty impressive.  _ Does  _ explain why he'd be in such a hurry to get rid of it, though." He glanced at Earl. "How bad are the warrants?"

"Bad. Piracy, evading authority, and expired registration. If we can play it off like a salvage title, like we just... found it abandoned somewhere, then re-register it. Could work."

Boll nodded sagely, then almost fell as the ship shook violently. "Shit! Earl! You hooked into the sensors?" he added as they hurried to the cockpit.

"Gettin' there… huh."

Boll, sliding into the pilot's seat, didn't like the sound of that.

"Ey boss," Earl continued, "You seein' this?"

Boll Diiso squinted at his new ship's heads-up display, and was about to reply when the inbound craft opened fire, its laser fire scattering over the  _ Drop _ 's shields in a show of aggression. "What's  _ this  _ asshole's problem?" Boll muttered to himself as he took the controls, accelerating the Charger to engagement speed. "Earl, what're the shields at?"

"Holdin' at sixty-eight percent, I'm gettin' the auxiliary systems online right now. Wasn't countin' on a firefight walkin' home from the store."

Boll lined the target up with the small utility-tape 'x' someone had added to the display in lieu of an actual crosshair, eyeballed the distance, and fired the helm-linked turbolaser, ripping through the fighter's shields in one salvo.

The starfighter didn't seem to care, twisting around and re-engaging the larger ship, its laser cannons rattling the  _ Drop _ 's shields.

Boll wheeled the ship about, returning fire, but the purple craft was too maneuverable. "Shit!" he snarled as his shots went wide, and the X-wing curved back towards them.

"Boss, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you ain't a fighter jock."

"You're right about that," he muttered, unstrapping from the seat and running down the corridor to the turret consoles. "Alright Earl," he said over the ship comm, "plug into the helm and get me a shot."

"Copy that," Earl replied, and the  _ Drop _ began to accelerate. "Whee! Ah shit."

"I don't like that," said Boll, then the ship shuddered as the fighter strafed them again, and an alarm whooped from the cockpit. "Great. What's that?"

"Shields," said Earl, "hold on, here comes your shot..."

The bounty hunter turned his attention back to the targeting computer. True to his word, Earl had positioned them so that the fighter's strafing run took it right through through Boll's crosshairs.

"This fucker's getting blasted," growled Boll as he mashed the triggers, his turbolaser fire perforating one of the fighter's wings.

"Looks like you hit somethin' important. Looks like your Ma when she's got a charlie horse."

Boll ignored the latter part of Earl's comment. "Can you get him in a position where he can't flank us?"

"Copy that…" began Earl, but he trailed off. "Ey boss, we're getting lotsa magnetic readings on scanners, think he's prepping to jump to lightspeed!"

Boll sighed. "Fine, let him leave. He took more of a beating than we did."

"Aaaand… he gone!" said Earl as the starfighter jumped away, and Boll got up from the turret console to return to the cockpit.

***

_ Boll's Drop _ , its shield projectors newly repaired (at least as repaired as Boll could manage), set down just outside of the Jedha market, but Boll wasn't looking for anything to buy.

Instead, Boll was looking for a shifty-looking droid in a wide-brimmed hat and a long coat lurking outside the Kyber temple.

"Hey, whatcha want," said the droid, which seemed to Boll to be a standard KX-series Imperial security model, until he realized that it was actually the size of a humanoid child.

It was an understandable mistake, since it was perched casually on top of an astromech droid.

"You got any new jobs?" asked Boll.

"Yeah, we always got new jobs," said the droid in its slightly nasal voice, "don't we, Artie?"

The astromech replied with a " _ BWAP _ ."

"That's a yes," said the droid in the coat.

Boll, unsure of what to make of the pair, nodded at nothing in particular.

"Okay, what are you in the market for?" asked the droid as it retrieved a datapad from somewhere inside its coat. 

"Y'know, bounty-type jobs," the bounty hunter replied quietly.

"Yeah, Artie and I have a lotta those, varying in severity and complexity, from glorified repo jobs to political... cleanings." The droid flipped through holographic information on the datapad. "You got reliable transportation?"

Boll nodded.

"Okay, gooooood, that'll make this easier. More options." The droid looked at the pad and then at Boll and then back again.

Boll noticed that someone had painted angry eyebrows on the droid. He decided not to bring it up.

"Okay, how 'bout this one... we got a guy on the lam. Bumped off the wrong person, probably to pay off a gambling debt, then bailed outta custody."

"Sounds doable. Y' know where he was seen last?"

The droid gave the bounty hunter a cockeyed look, made all the more ridiculous by the eyebrows. "Depends. You takin' the job or no?"

"Yeah, I'll take it."

"Ayy, good man," the droid replied, tossing the datapad to Boll. "That's got everything Arthur here knows about our friend," the droid continued, with an affectionate slap on the astromech's (rather unusual looking) dome section.

"Cheers," said Boll, pocketing the datapad, and the droid saluted lazily.

"Seeya 'round," it replied as Boll and Earl headed back to their ship.

"Earl, you good to leave?"

Earl turned away from the Jedha market hat stall he was ogling. "Yeh boss, I'm good."

As they returned to their ship, Boll checked the datapad.

"Cy Flake, last seen on Taris," he muttered to himself, "wanted for manslaughter and... public intoxication?"

"Weird," added Earl. "Any more info?"

"Trandoshan male," said Boll.

"Yikes," said Earl.

"Yeah. Pays 2040 creds, though. Alive." 

" _ Great _ ," grumbled Earl, "that's just enough to cover the cost of fuel."


	2. Episode II: Attack of the Groans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boll and Earl decide to call a zombie a zombie. They also say bad words and fight things.

_ Boll's Drop  _ popped out of hyperspace over Taris, and the bounty hunter immediately realized something was wrong.

"Shit," said Boll, frowning at the scanner readouts.

"What's up, boss?" asked Earl from the helm.

"This info's outdated. The mark should've still been on the planet surface, but the ship registered to him is sitting in orbit, docked with  _ that  _ thing," he replied, sending the telemetry to Earl.

"What in sithshit is a Carrack doing over Taris?" asked Earl.

"Nothing," said the bounty hunter, "that's the weirdest part. There's only a tiny power reading from it, and that's probably from Flake's ship, so the Carrack is… off."

"Or broken," added Earl. "Should I take 'er in?"

Boll considered the situation. "Yeah…" he replied after a minute. "I don't like the idea of Flake figuring out we're onto him and then hammering us with the Carrack's weapons."

"With you on that," said Earl. "Those hangar doors aren't gonna open with the power off, are you gonna be-"

Boll already had his mask and helmet on.

"-right," said Earl.

***

After some rather dicey maneuvering by Earl, they managed to dock the  _ Drop  _ with one of the Carrack cruiser's vehicle bays, and Boll entered the larger ship in pursuit of his reptilian quarry.

"How's the atmosphere in there?" asked Earl over the comm.

"Earl. I'm wearing a respirator. How the fuck would I know?"

"Y'know what I meant, boss. The  _ feel _ of the place. The  _ vibe _ ."

"Dark," Boll replied, slowly and carefully making his way to the end of the vehicle bay.

"In a literal or metaphorical sense?"

Boll rolled his eyes. "Both. This place is emptier than your Dejarik with Friends friend-list."

"Oh, so your mom's there? Say hi to her for me."

Boll groaned. "E chu tAUGH!" His curse turned into a yelp as something passed in front of his flashlight.

"What! Boll, what is it!"

Boll exhaled slowly, trying to calm himself as he waved his rifle around, trying to locate the culprit with the weapon's tactical light. "I dunno. Something's in here, though, and it sure didn't look like a Trandoshan."

" _ How _ sure?"

"Earl."

"Sorry. No more backseat bounty-hunting."

" _ Thank _ you. Need to focus. Why don't you try to get some schematics on this husk?"

"On it, boss."

"While you're at it, see if you can figure out how to turn the damned lights back on." Boll was certain he had seen  _ some _ thing, but couldn't stand around in the vehicle bay forever.

He continued forwards.

Then, as a pile of poorly-maintained plasteel armor fell on him from the ceiling, he realized why he had lost track of the creature. "Ow!" he grumbled, and raised his rifle as what he had assumed was an Imperial stormtrooper got to its feet.

It shrieked at him, illuminated in the unforgiving glare of Boll's tactical light, its broken jaw hanging below the skull-like helmet like a nutcracker caricature of a soldier. "What  _ is _ this thing?" he asked, activating his helmet camera to give Earl a look.

"Uh…" Earl was torn between making a joke or saying something useful, then realized he had nothing useful to say. "... the Empire's Finest?"

Boll chuckled, then the creature launched itself at him like a coiled spring.

"Ooh, lookit 'em go!" said Earl, as Boll ducked to the side and fired five shots into the creature's head, and it slumped lifelessly to the deck.

The bounty hunter nudged the iconic helmet with the toe of his boot, and was surprised at how easily it came off.

His surprise didn't end there. The head underneath was only vaguely human, a nightmarish mockery of a sentient creature, its swollen eyes bulging from their sockets, its jaw unhinged like a snake's.

"Yuck," said Earl.

"Why in the cold and uncaring universe does our mark have to be on  _ this  _ ship?" groaned Boll to himself.

"Wish I knew, pal. Gonna keep the engines on low, just in case things get messy and we need an exit."

"Good call," Boll replied. "Depends on how messy. That thing didn't seem  _ too  _ strong."

"If you say so, boss. I found the cruiser specs, by the way. Restarting the reactor should turn the lights on. If not, the backup power generator is in the same place; aft end of the ship. Bit of a walk from here, but doable."

"Then that's where I'm going," said the bounty hunter, once again filled with determination-

-right until he got to the vehicle bay door, which was unpowered. Boll scowled at it. 

"Great."

"There should be a manual-" began Earl.

"Found it." Boll shoved the lever on the side of the door, which then slammed open with a tremendously loud pneumatic  **_KERCHUNK_ ** .

"I hate this stupid ship," Boll grumbled as he walked through the now-open door and into a hallway, "if they didn't know I was here before…"

He trailed off with a sigh as two more of the horrifically mutated stormtroopers blocked his path. 

"They sure do now," he finished, raising his rifle and firing a burst of red pulses that flashed down the corridor like emergency lights, narrowly missing the pair of mutants. 

"Ah, shit." He let go of the rifle, letting it dangle on the shoulder strap as he drew his sidearm and activated his small wrist-buckler, which one of the creatures immediately slammed into. "Ha!" He swung the energy shield out, intending to knock the monster to the floor, but the other was faster than he had anticipated, snapping at him and hitting the wrist-mounted projector instead.

The energy shield fizzled out, as a large mutated human incisor had become lodged in the device.

"That's  _ my  _ fuckin' tooth now," said Boll, who, like the others of his species, had no teeth. He fired six shots; one missed, two went into one creature's head, two into the other, and one into the second creature's chest.

"These  _ are _ zombies, right?" asked Earl. "Am I good to call them zombies?"

"Gonna say yes," Boll replied, reloading his pistol. "Makes as much sense as anything else."

Something roared behind Boll, and he whirled to face something he was profoundly unprepared for.

"Awwww, a  _ Wookiee? Seriously? _ " He backpedaled as he fired his pistol, the bolts hitting the hulking undead creature with little effect besides creating a faint stench of singed hair that Boll couldn't smell anyway.

The bounty hunter glanced down for a half-second, making sure he wasn't about to trip on a welded seam or doorframe, and the Wookiee used the opportunity to swing one long arm at Boll, knocking him off his feet and into the wall with a metallic THUD.

"Ouugh," groaned Boll, then ducked as the creature's other arm swiped at him, its claws carving tiny canyons in the metal bulkhead just above his helmet, and he scooted out under its arm, holstering his pistol and raising his rifle as the wookiee leaped at him with terrible unnatural speed.

Boll ducked again as the undead wookiee sailed over him, spun around on his heel, and put two shots in it as it hit the ground.

It didn't get up again.

"Oooohh, my  _ ribs _ ," Boll groaned as he injected himself with a dose of low-grade painkillers.

"Sure you don't want to get fixed up and come back later?"

Boll shook his head. "Not gonna risk our target turning into one of these things and robbing us of half the take."

"Assuming he hasn't already been infected or whatever," Earl replied.

Boll shrugged, winced, then continued down the dark corridor, illuminated only by his tactical light, and silent save for his footsteps and the occasional  **_KERCHUNK_ ** of a manual door override.

"Hey, Earl?"

"What's up boss?"

"You got any idea where the good loot on this ship would be?"

"The good shit is gonna be further into the ship," the robot replied, and they were both silent for a moment, then said, in perfect synchronization:

"This is a derelict ship, how good can it be?"

They were silent again, save for slight chuckling from each of them, then Boll frowned. "I'm at a junction. Which way do I go?"

"Either way should take you towards the reactor."

"Got it," Boll replied, then was cut off by a high-pitched repetitive screech.

"Was that a monkey?" asked Earl. "Probably a zombie-monkey under the circumstances, but monkey regar-"

Boll rolled his eyes and turned Earl's volume down to 2%. He'd be able to hear the robot shout, but the aimless rambling was nearly inaudible under the hiss of his respirator. It was actually somewhat soothing, in a white-noise sort of way.

***

A handful of  **_KERCHUNK_ ** s later, and after restoring Earl to his original volume setting, Boll stood outside the door to the Carrack cruiser's reactor. As he reached for the pneumatic override lever, he paused.

"What is it?" asked Earl.

"Thought I heard something slapping around in there."

"Well. Statistically it's some kind of stormtrooper zombie, and is probably incapable of opening the doon on its own. Way I see it, either you open the door, or we go home. At this point, I'm amenable to either option, really."

Boll sighed and  **_KERCHUNK_ ** ed the door open, and was somewhat relieved when nothing leapt at him from the darkness.

"According to my limited schematics, you should be able to get the reactor itself online, instead of having to rely on the backup battery. Should give us better control of the situation."

"That'll make my noises even  _ more  _ suspect."

"These pneumatic doors are already as loud as rancors in heat, but your call."

"Ew."

"Yeah, sorry about that particular mental image."

"Hmm… You figure if I turn the power on, I could lock his vehicle bay?" asked Boll. "Assuming I find the controls?"

"Yeah, you could slam the doors and lock yourself and Cy in with a gajillion zombies. Which, I mean.... your call."

"Right. Remind me to check the other vehicle bay on my way back."

"Hey Boll."

"Yeah?"

"Don't forget to check the other vehicle bay."

The bounty hunter sighed. "You really go out of your way to be a nuisance, don't you?"

"Affirmative. Feel free to give me something to do, I'm a little tired of watching The Boll Show."

"Sorry I'm such a bore," Boll grumbled, scowling at a piece of machinery. "How about you tell me what this thing is?"

"Hm. Looks like the transformer for the ship's shields. Sorta useless at this point, since there's no juice in it. The door across the room from you should take you to the reactor."

"Finally, something helpful," the bounty hunter grumbled as he carefully made his way to the door and hit the manual override.

The door  **_KERCHUNK_ ** ed open, but, right as Boll stepped through, it slammed shut behind him.

"Ominous," said Boll, then whirled to his left, his flashlight beam flicking through the darkness as he tried to locate a noise that couldn't have been anything but ragged breathing.

A bright red line emerged from the darkness with an iconic  _ snap-hiss _ , illuminating a ruined face in its crimson glow.

"Who the FUCK are you?" asked Boll.

The saber-wielding creature simply shrieked in reply.

Boll raised his rifle. 

"Yeah, that seems about right." 

He fired twice as the flickering creature rushed towards him from the shadows, the first shot vanishing into the creature's voluminous black robes and the second deflected with a swing of the humming energy weapon.

It leapt towards the bounty hunter as dark energy enveloped it, and it vanished from sight.

"Great," he muttered, then went silent, focusing his mind on the sounds in the room. 

In addition to the low hum of distant backup systems, he could hear something else over it; the faint pattering of footsteps behind him.

Boll wished he had repaired his shield. He spun, raising his rifle again, and fired right as the creature lunged from the darkness.

His shot went wide, but Boll managed to duck the slash, the saber swishing overhead with a thrum of terrible energy, and he fired again, punching through the creature's desiccated left arm before the saber came back around and sliced through his gun, which began to make a very dangerous high-pitched whistling sound.

Boll looked at the creature (coming around for its follow-up swing with its left arm dangling uselessly at its side), then to his gun (leaking gas and on the brink of catastrophically overheating), then did the only thing that made sense to him, and hurled the gun at the saber-wielding creature.

He missed, and it went sailing over the creature's head.

"Ah,  _ shit _ ."

Then it exploded in a cloud of scything durasteel shrapnel, tearing through the undead menace like a thousand tiny saws, proving that the old adage of 'close only counts in darts and detonators' also includes catastrophically-overheating blasters.

Boll winced as he pulled a piece of rifle from his leg. "Dammit, that's my stun gun." 

"That  _ was  _ your stun gun," Earl replied helpfully.

The bounty hunter was about to reply with something scathing, then forgot all about it as he retrieved something from the floor.

The lightsaber ignited with a sound that had preceded the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people over the course of galactic history.

"Yoink," said Boll, swinging the weapon around with poorly-disguised glee, then shut it off and returned to the issues at hand; namely the monolithic reactor in the center of the room.

"How the hell does this reactor work?" asked Boll after examining it for a couple minutes.

"Do I  _ look  _ like some kinda engineering wizard?"

"Kind of. Are there any notes in the schematics?"

"Actually... eh... hm. There should be an access panel in the front."

"Which end is the front? I assume it's the side with all the fancy things."

"Yeah, should be under one of the big green things... I  _ think  _ they're green, that might just be the-"

Boll wasn't sure if Earl had stopped talking or just been drowned out by the reactor's ear-shattering rumble.

Then the reactor died again.

"Huh," said Boll, flipping the switch again and treating himself (and the entire ship) to more cataclysmically loud rumbling sounds.

Which lasted for twelve seconds.

"I am… not good at this."

"Eh, it's alright boss, neither am I."

"Is there something else I should try?"

"Hmm…" Earl checked the schematics again. "Try kicking it."

"...Are you serious?"

"Very," replied the droid. "Fuel rods are supposed to spin and apparently the drive mechanism for that tends to get stuck right around where your foot is."

Boll rolled his eyes. "This has got to be the dumbest-"

Despite his misgivings, the bounty hunter kicked the device anyway, and it roared to life in an incredibly violently loud manner.

"Hey, I think you did something," said Earl, as Boll blinked in the sudden blinding light.

"Sure looks like it," he replied, then noticed that the door had opened again.

More importantly, he noticed a handful of creatures lurking in the doorway. 

"Also looks like I woke up the dead," he added, reaching reflexively for his rifle and then cursed viciously when he remembered it was missing.

Then he smiled when he remembered his new toy, which ignited in a flash of red.

"Obligatory 'careful with that or you'll put your eye out,'" said Earl.

Boll sighed. "Thanks,  _ mom _ ."

"Oh, you don't even want to know what your mom has to say on the subject."

"Don't worry, I can imag… Wait, what did you tell her?"

"Told her that her favorite son found a lightsaber and was going to hit some zombies with it, then she asked me how I was holding a lightsaber. We had a good laugh."

Boll was spared any further conversation on the subject when the creatures rushed towards him with a trio of terrible screeches.

"Me too," said the bounty hunter, whipping his pistol from its holster and firing a salvo of shots, dropping one creature to the deck but missing the other one-

-which proceeded to accidentally impale itself on his lightsaber.

He pulled the weapon free with a flourish, then turned to face the remaining ghoulish trooper.

"En garde,  _ fucker _ ."

It loped towards him in a strange monstrous gait, gaining speed as it went, and as it swung its wicked mutant claws, Boll sidestepped the attack and slashed the creature's arm off at the elbow.

It screeched, then, undeterred, it slashed at him with its other set of claws, dragging them between his armor plates with the screech of talons on metal and drawing blood.

"Hope that's not contagious," Boll wheezed, holding one hand to the blood welling up between the chestplates, then assumed a defensive stance as the creature charged him again, this time slashing its other arm off, but, as he prepared a follow-up attack, slipped on a patch of gore and hurled the lightsaber into the wall. 

"Shit!" 

He tried to maintain his balance, failed, and fell.

The creature launched itself at him, its jaws yawning wide, and Boll kicked it in the chest, winding it for a moment, just long enough for him to draw his blaster pistol from its holster and jab the barrel into the zombie's eye socket.

"Lights out," Boll growled, then pulled the trigger, painting the room with a flash of light and the inside of the creature's head.

The zombie went limp, and the bounty hunter pushed it away, where it slumped lifelessly to the floor.

"You alright?" asked Earl.

"I… I think so." Boll didn't get up, remaining prone on the floor as he caught his breath. "Still bleeding, though."

"Might want to disinfect that or something."

Boll nodded silently, pulled out his trauma kit, and jabbed himself with a needle. "Hope that was the right one," he grunted, still lying down.

"Well, the Stormtrooper Zombie Disease doesn't seem to be turning you into a zombie, stormtrooper or otherwise, so either it's slow-acting, you adequately disinfected the wound, or it just doesn't affect Kel Dor in the first place."

"The latter would be weird, considering some of the Empire's various bioweapon projects," muttered the bounty hunter.

"You think the Empire  _ made  _ this disease?"

"Wouldn't surprise me, since they've done this sorta thing before." Boll groaned and sat up. "Ugh. Where'd that saber go?"

"You threw it off to the left, I think it hit the door panel thing but I didn't get a very good look."

"Ah." Boll gingerly made his way over to the fallen weapon, igniting it once again to make sure it was intact, then nearly tripped on something. "Ooh. Yoink again."

"What'd you yoink this time? I can't get a good look from your helmet cam."

"E-11 off one of these troopers. You haven't heard his ship or anything since we docked, yeah?"

"His ship's still docked, haven't heard much from it, but…"

"But?" Boll asked hesitantly.

"...I think your actions have had... unforeseen consequences"

"Foreboding. Care to elaborate?"

"Well,  _ our _ actions, since I encouraged it, but, once you activated the reactor, the  _ Honor's Folly  _ started moving."

Boll realized that the faint sinking feeling he had been experiencing was not simply a case of nerves. "Well, guess it's time to hunt down the helm controls. You couldn't have told about this sooner?"

"You had a zombie thing on you at the time, it really wasn't the most pressing issue at hand. Anyway, helm's gonna be in the front, more or less. Shouldn't be too hard to find."

"Good. Thought this job was gonna be a Boll Crawls Through The Ventilation Adventure."

"Well, not unless you  _ want  _ it to be."

Boll hurried through the corridors, following Earl's (more or less guesswork) directions, faster and faster as he felt the massive cruiser beginning to accelerate.

"Think I'm almost there?"

"I'm… not sure. Apparently this ship configuration is highly modular."

"Great." Boll half-skidded to a stop in front of a large unmarked door. "Big door, front-center of ship… looks promising…" He trailed off with a curious look at a stack of crates next to the door. "Gonna take a look at these," he said, pulling the prybar from his belt, "something seems off about them."

Earl would have rolled his eyes if he had any. "Should probably make it qui-"

"Ew." Boll slammed the first crate shut and slid it away. "Rotten food and bugs."

The other two crates contained colorful one-piece costumes ("weird") and miscellaneous exotic-looking weapons ("Oh fun, I'm coming back for you").

Finally, with saber at the ready, Boll hit the button for the large door, then backed up into a ready stance.

"Ack!" said a sultry feminine voice, belonging to a gleaming metallic nightmare: half consort-bot and half Droideka.

"Thank  _ fuck _ , not a zombie," said Boll with audible relief. "Are you a friendly?"

"That  _ greatly  _ depends on what you're planning on doing with that weapon," the gleaming metallic nightmare replied, with a gesture at the bounty hunter's lightsaber.

"This? Turn whatever zombies that fuck with me into mush." He lowered the weapon, pointing it towards the floor.

The droid was motionless for a moment, considering Boll's reply. "That is an acceptable answer," she said finally. "What are you  _ doing  _ here? This ship is a deathtrap."

"Hunting down someone who decided to dock here."

"Ah," said the droid.

"What're  _ you  _ doing here?"

"Likely the exact same thing as you are," she replied. "My jackass captain locked me out of the ship and I don't have the codes."

"Is... your captain a Trandoshan?" asked Boll hesitantly.

"Cy Flake, yes. Has an active bounty. Hence the..." She gestured vaguely toward Boll. "...bounty hunter. I assume."

"You'd be right."

"I usually am."

"So...how do you feel about your captain?"

The droid made a sighing noise. "He is _almost completely incompetent_... but pays well."

"How about I offer at least slightly more competence, and at least slightly better pay?"

She considered the offer. "Hmm. Add 20% of Flake's bounty and it's a deal."

Boll clipped the saber to his belt and extended his hand. "Deal."

She shook his hand with her own. Fortunately, her right hand was normal, unlike her left, which was a decidedly-lethal-looking heavy repeating blaster. "I am B3K-E, by the way, but I go by Becky. Now… let's see about retrieving my boss."

"Where'd you see him last?"

She cocked her strange three-eyed head at him. "I haven't seen him since we docked, though I'm fairly certain he's beyond that door." 

She nodded at a door that seemed to have been splashed with a sort of viscous liquid.

"However," she continued, "I am fairly certain there is  _ also  _ a large hostile creature of some sort."

Boll checked his somewhat-refurbished stormtrooper-issue blaster rifle. "On Cy's team?"

B3K-E shook her head. "I believe it is... native. Some kind of reanimated thing."

"Wookiee? I had to deal with one of those earlier."

"My condolences. However, based purely on sound, it seems  _ far  _ larger than a Wookiee."

"Alright." Boll nodded as he came up with a plan. "Anything you need to do before we figure out if your guy's alive?"

"If I know my captain, he's found a nice small place to roach in. I wouldn't worry about him. As far as the creature is concerned, I doubt very much that it is more intelligent than your average shambling corpse."

"Hopefully we can outmaneuver it." Boll reached his left hand out, hovering over the door-open control, and looked at his new ally. "Ready?"

B3K-E nodded. "Yes."

Boll hit the button and the door hissed open, and seemed to continue hissing long after it had stopped moving.

The bounty hunter realized after a moment that it wasn't the door, the sound was a myriad of muffled screams coming from somewhere down the hall. "That your captain?" he asked quietly, deciding whether or not to peek around the corner.

"No, I suspect he would be louder."

Boll decided 'yes' on peeking around the corner. "Well, let's see what someone's gotten himself into."

He stuck his head and rifle out. He did not see Cy, but he  _ did _ locate the source of the screaming noises.

An immense congealed mass of flesh and stormtrooper armor blocked their path, moaning and screaming with its shifting, countless mouths.

"Oh," said Boll.

"On second thought," added B3K-E, taking a look as well, "maybe we should leave and never come back."

Boll began to back up from the door, slowly but steadily, hoping to avoid provoking the creature. "You don't have a detonator or something, do you?"

"If wishes were high-yield incendiary explosives, then yes, I would have a lot of them right about now. But they're not."

The horrific mass undulated towards them.

"Think we should back up and reevaluate the situation?" asked the bounty hunter.

"That is probably the wisest course of action," replied the droid as the blob began to surge towards them, "though I believe a deterrent is in order."

B3K-E's heavy repeating blaster pulsed loudly, drowning out Boll's E-11, as they ran for the door, spattering the immense blob with blaster fire, then turned the corner and slammed the door behind them.

"You're  _ sure  _ Cy is in there?"

"Yes. I heard him yelp just before you showed up."

"Damn."

Before Boll could come up with an adequate curse for the situation, Earl cut in.

"Hey boss, the ship is descending a lot faster now. Thought you should know."

"Huh," said the bounty hunter, once again at a loss for an adequate curse. "We need to deal with the ship. We can worry about that zombie blob once we make sure we're not gonna turn into some neighborhood-sized crater on Taris."

B3K-E nodded. "I agree, but we still need a route to the helm."

"Well," said Earl, "it seems this is going to be a Boll Crawls Through The Ventilation Adventure after all. Except in this case it's maintenance tunnels that should lead straight to the helm."

"Thanks, Earl." Boll turned to B3K-E. "You think we can rush in, unfuck our trajectory, grab your boss, and get out before we get eaten?"

"I certainly hope so," she replied. "Hopes aside, I think the maintenance tunnels are our best bet. I don't know what that thing is capable of, and I do not like not knowing things."

"Agreed. Earl, where do those tunnels start?"

"Schematic says that you should check a squarish panel on the wall near the bottom-right corner of the door."

As Boll went to look for the panel in question, he heard a sound like  **_Glorp_ ** , followed by a metallic  **WHAM** from the door.

"I hate this ship," said Boll, trying to hurry. "Hopefully those stupid zombies don't realize what we're doing."

**WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM**

"Got it!" Boll yanked the panel from the wall and scurried into the tunnel on his hands and knees, followed by B3K-E, who replaced the panel as well as she could, then tapped Boll's shoulder and made a shushing gesture, which looked rather ridiculous.

They sat, silent, in the darkness of the maintenance tunnel, listening to more  **WHAM** s, then, finally, the awful shriek of twisting metal and sickening viscous sounds of the zombie-blob's undulating movement.

After a minute of the  **WHAM** s and metal noises getting gradually fainter, B3K-E nodded to Boll, and they proceeded through the tunnel, eventually reaching some sort of room: a supply closet adjacent to the bridge.

As they emerged from the tunnel, they found out they weren't alone.

"EEP!" said the Trandoshan in the corner.

The distant  **WHAM** s stopped suddenly, leaving an ominous silence in their wake.

Boll already had his sidearm out as he addressed the man that was almost certainly Cy Flake. "If you don't want us all to get ruined by the zom-blob, you're gonna need to keep quiet."

Cy clamped his hands over his mouth and nodded.

"More specifically, you should avoid making more embarrassing squeaking noises," B3K-E remarked as she slid the supply closet door open and stalked silently into the ship's command bridge, with Boll right behind her. "We should be able to access the controls from here…" 

Despite her expressionless droideka head, Boll got the distinct impression that B3K-E was frowning as she fiddled with the device. "This is... unlike any control system I've ever seen. Are they all touch interfaces?"

Boll peeked into the supply closet, where Cy was still huddled in the corner. "Do you know how to use this?"

Cy meekly shuffled into the bridge, glancing at the various systems before Boll directed his attention to what appeared to be a primary control panel. Cy stared at the controls as Boll and B3K-E both fought the impulse to tap their feet impatiently.

After a moment, Cy ran his hands over the console, tapping in commands that would hopefully keep the Carrack cruiser from becoming a Taris landmark.

"Do you hear that?" B3K-E asked Boll quietly, hoping not to disturb Cy, who was actually accomplishing something for once.

The bounty hunter shook his head. "No. What is it?"

"Not sure. Sounded like the maintenance tunnel."

Boll sighed. "I'll check it out, you make sure Captain Chucklefuck here doesn't hyperspace us into an asteroid."

She nodded, and Boll approached the supply closet, pistol at the ready, then jumped back as something came tumbling out of the maintenance tunnel: a stormtrooper helmet.

Its owner leered at the bounty hunter from the interior.

"Dammit!" said Boll as quietly as he could manage. "You're not gonna fuck with my bounty you undead shitbag!" He fired, blaster bolts slamming into the creature and the tunnel around it, and it backed up slightly.

Boll charged into the tunnel after it.

"Uh, what's going on?" asked Cy, as the metallic echoes of screeches and gunfire reached his ears.

"Not your problem," said B3K-E. "Keep doing…. Whatever it is that you're doing." Then something occurred to her. "Stay here and don't do anything stupid," she said, realizing that there was another supply closet directly across the room, and if there were zombies in  _ one _ maintenance tunnel, then it was a good bet that there were zombies in the  _ other _ -

"Shit," said B3K-E, as a handful of the ghouls crashed through the supply closet door. "Cy! Follow Boll!"

"Who's Boll?"

B3K-E's head turned all the way around to face her old captain. "Cy, I  _ know  _ context clues were never your strong suit, but  _ WHO THE FUCK DO YOU  _ THINK  _ I'M REFERRING TO? _ "

"Uh-"

Her heavy repeater spun up, spraying the ravenous zombies with a hail of bolts. "CY! GET! IN! THE! FUCKING!  _ TUNNEL! _ "

"No! It's safe in here! I'm not dying again!"

Boll peeked out of his maintenance tunnel "... _ again _ ?"

"Yeah!" Cy replied, seemingly frozen in place.

"You  _ will  _ explain that later," said the bounty hunter, "for now, just get in the stupid vent."

"Tunnel," reminded Earl.

"NOT THE FUCKING TIME, EARL!" Boll peeked out again, thanking some sort of formless generic deity that Cy was actually running over, then noted with concern that B3K-E was right behind him, her blaster-arm beeping and blinking red.

"Overheat," she said, shoving Cy into the vent with her other arm.

"Wait, I got this!" said Cy, leaning out and firing his own pistol.

He managed to avoid hitting anything important before the droid pushed him back in.

"Cy, you are  _ such  _ a fucking disappointment," she said, scambling through the tunnel and out the other side, where Boll had been pounced on by one of the ghouls.

Her repeater bleeped sadly, still signaling overheat, and she snatched the pistol from Cy's (surprisingly weak) grip and fired a handful of shots into the creature, apparently superheating its lungs, which exploded onto Boll in a shower of viscera and filth.

"I apologize for that," said B3K-E, returning Cy's weapon to him as her own showed green again.

"It is what it is," said Boll, wiping his helmet faceplate clear.

B3K-E sighed as she shoved Cy out of the way as a zombie lunged at him from the tunnel behind them. "Cy, if we live through this experience, Dr. Kill and I are going to quit."

"Who's Dr. Kill?" asked Boll, curious despite the situation.

"A 2-1b medical droid and an associate of mine. If this keeps up, it is highly likely we will need his assistance. He enjoys giving people 'The L,'" said B3K-E as she ducked the zombie's sluggish attack. "I'm not sure why and I've never bothered to ask."

"Not to state the obvious," said Earl as he prepared to state the obvious, "but you lot  _ really _ need to get moving."

B3K-E nodded, ushering Cy down the hallway. "Of course, visiting the doctor would require living long enough to see him." Boll nodded as the group turned a corner.

"Nice that the zombie things seem to be behind you now," said Earl as the trio began to run, firing wilding over their shoulders at the pursuing mob.

"Hell yeah BITCH!" shouted Cy, landing a hit on one of the creatures.

"It's  _ still alive  _ you  _ blathering incoherent FUCK _ !" the droid shouted as she delivered a barrage of blaster fire into the crowd.

"Oh," said Cy.

"More up ahead!" said Boll, as a pair of creatures emerged from an adjacent hallway and lunged; one at B3K-E, who narrowly sidestepped the attack, and one at Boll, hitting the bounty hunter with what amounted to a belly-flop and knocking him to the floor.

Boll flinched as the creature's teeth gnashed furiously, and shoved the barrel of his pistol into its mouth. "Chew on  _ this! _ " he snarled as he pulled the trigger.

Most of its head evaporated, showering Boll with a fine red mist as he shoved the corpse off of himself and stood up, just in time to catch a glance of the second one coming at him.

He spun on his heel in the puddle of gore, sighted his pistol, and blasted the remaining zombie's left arm off at the elbow.

As it reeled, B3K-E circled around and slammed it into the wall before perforating it with a salvo of heavy blaster fire.

"You disgust me," she sneered as the creature slid to the floor.

"Nice," said Cy, and the droid whirled to face him.

"THAT WAS DIRECTED AT  _ YOU _ , CY!"

"Ah," said Cy, frowning as he looked around. "Have we been here before?"

Boll looked around and spotted a three familiar-looking supply crates, next to a ruined door, a handful of corpses, and an open maintenance hatch.

He sighed. "Well, since we're here, I'm at least grabbing the box of weird swords."

"Hey! Those are mine!" said Cy.

Boll hefted the box. "Disagree."

"What the heck are you going to do with a bat'leth you stupid p'tach?" asked the Trandoshan irritably as the group ran back down the hallway towards the vehicle bays.

"Shut up," said B3K-E and Boll simultaneously.

"Going in a circle seems to have actually helped you," said Earl, "it looks like you've lost your smelly friends."

"Glad to hear it. Are we almost there?"

"Should be the next left."

They turned the corner into the vehicle bay and Boll took the opportunity to shoot Cy with a wookiee-dose of stun-blast, and the Trandoshan crumpled to the floor.

"Could've waited until we were a  _ bit  _ closer," said B3K-E as she closed the door behind them. "You're in charge of dragging him around."

"Fine," said Boll as he tied up his quarry, "can you get the box of swords?"

The droid hefted the box with her normal hand as Boll draped Cy over his shoulders, then frowned at the puddle of slime he was standing in. "I don't remember this being here," he said, then looked up.

"What about that?" asked B3K-E as she backed towards the vehicle bay exit, "does the giant mutant zombie blob ring any bells?"

"Oh," said Earl, "that's bad."

"No shit," said Boll.

"No, I mean it's  _ worse _ . Cy rigged all the doors to lock. You're stuck in there."

"Dammit. I don't see us winning this fight unless I can find a trick."

"Better find a trick then, boss," Earl replied as the zom-blob approached slowly, then sped up to a terrifying undulating pace, and it was all Boll could do to sprint.

"I may have a trick," said Boll as he ran up the stairs towards a maintenance hatch, but the stairs didn't stop the blob of zombies. "Shit."

"Your trick was-"

"-hoping it can't climb stairs, yeah," he replied, and was going to say more when the blob extruded a long arm-like limb and used it to slam the bounty hunter into the wall.

_ I'm gonna fucking die _ , thought Boll as he crumpled to the floor,  _ how the  _ fuck  _ am I getting out of this? _


End file.
